


Beautiful Little Fools

by dyingpoet



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Coming of Age, F/M, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-14 22:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15399096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: The spring semester through the eyes and words of Todd Anderson





	1. The Orphan

**Author's Note:**

> Title references 'The Great Gatsby'

Todd watched as the snow covered landscape transitioned from pristine fields to the meticulously planned lawns and sprawling campus of Welton. They’d been given a lecture about the effects of deforestation and he found himself nearly smiling at the irony of the whole thing.

The new year didn’t really feel all that new, he thought, even though the decade had changed, 1960 still felt like the leftovers from ‘59. He’d spent the whole Christmas break going through the final hell of college applications only to have to come back to school for five months. It all made him feel like for some reason he was still struggling to keep his head above water despite the shore being right there.

Maybe that was a bit dramatic, Neil had teased him for thinking in stanzas more than sentences, but the imagery wasn’t so bad. Sometimes he wished he’d gotten more into art than poetry.

But regardless, it wouldn’t be so easy to slip into that ‘end of the world’ mindset if the car ride back to Welton hadn’t been so quiet. His dad was the only one coming to drop him off, his mother claimed a migraine and stayed behind with his brother. Jeff had about a week left before he went back to college and Todd couldn’t really blame his mother for opting to stay. Apparently he was getting an internship in New York starting in the summer, very important stuff.

Or so he’d been told. After the first few days back he started blocking out all the legal stuff, even if it was his brother and all there was only so much he could take before ripping out his hair.

Needless to say he’d gotten quite a bit of reading, writing too, done during the break. He’d bet a thousand dollars he’d read more words than he’d spoken, it might have been the least he’d spoken during an extended period around his family, it was that bad.

Clearing his throat, every so often he got the irrational fear he’d go mute, he stole a glance at his father and bit back a sigh. There was a certain similarity in the stoicism on his father’s face to his own that he’d denied for years. Expressiveness never became a priority of is, not even at Welton, Neil was expressive enough for the both of them and he was okay with that.

He counted a half second delay after the car started slowing down before brakes squeaked. They desperately needed to bring the thing in but kept putting it off and collectively said nothing. 

There were a few other families unloading with their kids but they must’ve beat the main crowd, everyone was hanging back to avoid the cold for as long as possible, probably. 

Another quick look to his left and it seemed like his father hadn’t magically changed since the last time he dropped Todd off.

Which was to say, John Anderson always had an air of discomfort when it came to goodbyes, specifically when they involved his youngest son. 

“Do you need help with your stuff?” he asked. It was rhetorical. Todd had one suitcase of stuff he forgot to bring for the fall semester and he was seventeen going on eighteen so no, he really didn’t need help carrying it in.

Todd shook his head. “No, I got it.”

A beat of silence passed before his father cleared his throat. “Okay, so, we’ll see you again for spring break.”

Yeah. It was like someone had electrified awkwardness and used their beat down car as a circuit board. Not a bad metaphor, actually. 

Todd nodded and pushed open the door, lifting the suitcase laying at his feet up and with him. A hand closed on his shoulder and nearly rolled his eyes at  _ himself _ for gasping and jerking forward in surprise. 

Turning back, his eyebrows nearly shot into his hairline.

His father was smiling almost lightly. “Sorry,” he said, “I just wanted to say that you’re doing great.” 

Compensation perhaps, the words sounded like a weird mixture of apologetic and desperate and there was no response he could think of that would put that to rest..

Someone shouted something in the distance and Todd forced a ‘thanks’ out before starting for the dormitories, suitcase dragging along the pavement. The care revved back to life behind him and a tension in his shoulders slowly let up once the sound faded away completely.

The unique sounds of school felt comforting once he opened the door to the dormitories. He thought he could make out Cameron and Meeks voices from the general hum.

A guy from his Chemistry class shouldered past him when he rounded the corner toward his room. Funnily enough, with barely forty guys in his class he probably couldn’t pick most of them out in a lineup.  

“Todd!” 

At least he managed to bite back the gasp this time around. “Jesus Chri-”

A rather overenthusiastic Neil Perry spun him around before he could get anything else out. A knot loosened in his chest, god he’d missed him.

“How was your break?” he asked, “I just got here and I’m so starved entertainment you don’t even  _ know _ .”

Neil slung an arm around his shoulders and they walked down the hall toward their room. There was a warmth spreading through his body and he felt a half-hearted struggle in his mind to convince him it was just because of literal body heat. He didn’t know, just, anything right now.

Todd shrugged the best he could. “Sorry to disappoint but pretty dull.”

“Give me  _ some  _ details, it couldn’t have been more boring than mine.”

The door was ajar and Neil practically dragged Todd inside before shutting it behind them. Honest to god he was practically bouncing off the walls. 

Todd put his suitcase on the bed and started unpacking it, there wasn’t much besides a few new shirts he’d gotten for Christmas. 

“ _ Todd _ .”

Biting back a grin he turned around and crossed his arms, he really had missed messing with Neil like this. “Yes?”

“Come on,” Neil said, “I need stimulation if I’m to survive these last months of Welton.”

He really did look on the brink of collapse, bags around his eyes and just enough desperation in his voice to let Todd in on who’d been causing him stress all break. Thank god he never found out about  _ A Midsummer Night’s Dream _ . God knows what he might have done.

Catching himself before he started really thinking about Neil in the play, he’d be done for if he did that, he cleared his throat and tried to think of something convincing to tell him.

As much as he didn’t want to talk about his vacation, he could bend the truth of the details for Neil’s sake.

“It really wasn’t that exciting,” he said, “Jeff was home and he’s getting this internship thing so we talked a lot about that. I was reading and catching up on the sleep for the majority of the time, honest.”

“Just reading? No writing at all?”

He started stuttering and then almost blushing because Neil’s face had lit up from the stuttering. A mess, honestly. 

“I knew it! C’mon let me read some,” Neil said.

If there was a notebook sitting around he would have snatched it, Todd’s permission or not, but he had to play polite now until Todd got it out. And Todd  _ really  _ didn’t want to get it out. Most of the poems where extremely thin metaphors for either his family, general loneliness, or Neil. And even if Neil was a bit dense about poetry in Keating’s class he still got the jist and he didn’t need to room with him for five months after he read a glorified scarlet letter. God knew if he was

Todd took a deep breath. “Later okay? Most of it I wanted to edit anyway and I’d rather if you read it-”

“ _ When  _ I read it.”

“ _ \- when  _ you read it, you get the final copy.”

Folding up the last shirt in his bag Todd dragged the thing under his bed. Settled in. The silence was uncharacteristic though and when he looked up there was a smirk on Neil’s face. He had to keep himself from  _ squirming  _ under his gaze.

“What?”

Neil shrugged and sat down on his bed. “You sound so professional is all. ‘Editing’ and getting the ‘final copy’. Very adult.”

Heat was rushing through every area of his face now. “Shut up.”

A goofy smile broke through Neil’s facade and he started laughing. It was adorable if Todd was being 100% honest with himself and he felt his own mouth turning up despite his efforts to fight it. 

A few weeks ago he might have shot back with something clever but the time away had shrank a bit of his confidence and he really just felt tired. With his back against the wall he stretched his legs out until they just came over the edge of the bed and tried to feel every muscle. It calmed him to do that every now and then. 

Neil cleared his throat and Todd opened his eyes, he didn’t really remember closing them. Neil was frowning and his head was tilted, concern was a nice shade on him, and Todd forced a light tone. 

“What’s up?”

He shrugged and flicked his eyes down to the ground before pulling them up again. “You seem down.”

“Well y’know, spent some time at home.”

A sad smile appeared on Neil’s face and for a half second Todd really hated himself.

“Yeah, I feel that.”

* * *

 

Latin was the most useless language on the planet in this year 1960 and for some reason Todd was on his fourth year taking it.

They’d gotten that whole spiel about it’s modern applications in law, which Todd wasn’t going into, and medicine, which Todd was not going into, and how English is derived from it, which Todd was going into but he spoke the language and could care  _ less _ . 

But instead of venting any sort of frustration, he’d just sat through the first class of Latin 4 for this semester sedated, drifting in and out of a particular daydream the entire time. 

Charlie was flipping through the textbook at the door with Neil and Meeks when he got to the door. 

“We’re going to spend an entire  _ month  _ on the introduction of  _ The Aeneid _ ,” he said. 

Meeks shrugged. “It’s pretty much the most important part of the whole thing, at least they aren’t making us do all twelve books.”

They started going back and forth and Todd felt the sense of normalcy returning to him a bit. He’d been jumpier and quieter since he got back but he felt himself coming back. Like when you cut off circulation with a bandage or something, and when you take it off the blood starts rushing back, and it hurts but in a good way? Like that.

Neil slung an arm around Todd’s shoulder as they started to walk to their next classes. Warmth again, decidedly not body heat. “You in for study group tonight?”

He ruffled Todd’s hair affectionately after he nodded and split off with Meeks to Calculus, and Charlie fell into step with Todd as they worked their way through the crowded hallway toward chemistry.

All chemistry classes had to be half the normal class size for safety reasons, some kid had started a pretty major fire while the teacher was helping another student a few years back, and out of their whole group Charlie and Todd were the only ones in a different class period. It had brought about a strange level of friendship between them, birthed mainly from mutual suffering and confusion, but a friendship nonetheless.

“So Todd,” Charlie said, “did you connect with another lab partner over the break, decide to leave me for someone better?”

“Nope,” Todd said. He bite back the ‘I wish’ that sarcastically sat on the edge of his tongue. One step forward, two steps back.

Okay,” Charlie bumped Todd’s shoulder with his own. “Good.”

* * *

 

“It’s two drops of iodine, Charlie.”

“He definitely said four.”

“You have selective hearing.”

Todd took the dropper as Charlie rolled his eyes and put the two drops of iodine into the beaker. They were supposed to be making some sort of isotopic compound but Mr. Freeman’s heart wasn’t really in it on that particular day and he and Charlie were slowly but surely diverging from the directions. The guy had really said one drop of iodine. 

Charlie’s fingers drummed on the table as Todd stirred their mixture, a bit cautiously, and watched it bubble a bit. 

“Let’s just add stuff,” Charlie said. He reached for a bottle with a myriad of safety symbols and groaned when Todd grabbed his wrist and forced his hand back.

“Famous last words Charlie.”

Charlie chuckled and rocked his chair back on the back legs, tossing his pencil onto the table. “Fair enough, but this is boring and Freeman is reading at his desk,” he said, eyes skimming the rest of the room idly. “Let’s do something else.”

Mr. Freeman  _ was _ reading. And Todd  _ did  _ try and catch a glimpse of the title, leaning back in his own chair, before a hand closed on his wrist and pulled him forward. “Char-”

“C’mon, I’m bored.” His grip tightened when Todd tried pull away, eyes lighting up when Todd stared him down for a couple of seconds before letting go. 

This time Todd didn’t hold back his eye roll, Charlie’s eyes lighting up for a half second afterwards, and shrugged. “I dunno.”

Normally Charlie would have sat in stubborn silence until todd was forced to pick the conversation back up, but now he, and all the other guys Todd noticed, seemed a bit quicker to help him out. 

“Well, how was your vacation then?” he asked. There was a hint of a mocking tone, but light enough to let Todd know he was just bored and being himself. 

Todd blinked. “What is this?”

“A conversation, I’m capable of holding one.”

His gaze held steady and Todd felt his heartbeat quicken for a beat before opening his mouth in response. “Okay. It was fine, nothing special really.”

“ _ Todd. _ ”

There was a blush fighting its way up Todd’s neck and it was all he could do to not break eye contact with Charlie. He had a weird way of trying to coax Todd out of his shell, it didn’t involve any coaxing. More exasperated pulling.

This also almost always took place during chemistry because it was the only time he was with Todd one on one. It hadn’t taken him long last semester to draw Todd’s sarcastic side out and into the light and it seemed like that was his current plan as well.

“Fine,” Todd said, “I read a lot, wrote. My brother came home from college and we talked about that. Happy?”

He was, evidently, his smirk enough of an indication. “Thrilled. So what did you write about?”

Todd appreciated that he didn’t try and push the topic of his brother, out of all of them Charlie was the only one who never asked any questions about him, actually. 

“I don’t know, different stuff.”

Charlie cocked his head to the side. “Any  _ people _ you wrote about?”

The blush had worked its way up his neck and was tirelessly seeking more ground.

“No, why?” Todd asked. Without thinking his eyes flicked to the clock. They had half an hour left.

“Just thought you might have s’all.”

Charlie’s smirk at this point was barely disguising an all out grin that Todd could sense just by looking at Charlie’s eyes. They were practically glowing, both from the attention and the fact that he and Todd both knew he had him on a line. 

But Todd was not going to blink first, and years of experience with keeping his mouth shut and face neutral were finally paying off. Combine that with Charlie’s child-like impatience and about five seconds of silence went by before Charlie spoke. 

“So you and Neil? What’s going on there?” 

His voice had lowered enough that it only could be heard by them, but Todd felt it ringing in his ears. “What do you mean?”

Electricity pulsed through his veins and quickly transformed into desperation because somehow Charlie knew something that Todd didn’t have the time, a life-time wasn’t enough, to process and they were discussing it in Mr. Freeman’s fourth period chemistry.

The desperation was palpable, apparently, and Charlie had the decency to look apologetic before continuing. 

“Y’know, the looks and the touching and the whole roommate thing you guys got going on,” he said, “I connected the dots.”

Todd let out a breath. “Okay, well you and Cameron are roommates so I don’t know how that helps you connect the dots.”

“They connect regardless. And ew, never say anything about Cameron in that sense to me ever again.”

A burst of nervous laughter escaped Todd, and he kept his gaze glued firmly to the ground. It was so cliche to think but he really  _ did  _ wish that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow him and/or Charlie Dalton.

A foot nudging his finally brought his eyes back up and Charlie truly did look sympathetic. “Hey, sorry. I don’t care if that means anything, and I could be totally wrong about the whole thing-”

“You’re not,” Todd cut in, surprising himself and Charlie if his raised eyebrows were anything to go by. “I-I mean nothing has come of it, so maybe you are, I don’t know.”

“Oh, so you don’t know if he,” Charlie gestured vaguely, “feels like that.”

Todd nodded. Charlie smiled wider. 

Feeling quite a bit betrayed, Todd tried to shift the subject. “Have you ever, y’know, with a guy?”

“Yep.”

If he was being honest, he was aiming a tiny bit to embarrass Charlie back, but forgot that that was nearly impossible. Somehow he looked every calmer after that confession. 

Curiosity sparked in Todd’s chest. “Really? With who?”

“That’s classified,” Charlie said, “but if you must know, it was here, and started with a situation quite similar to the one you find yourself in now.”

His smirk grew when Todd blinked, stunned and more than a little intrigued. As much as he would love to stutter his way through a request to figure out exactly  _ how  _ Charlie had gotten, y’know, with a guy in the end, they were still in Mr. Freeman’s fourth period chemistry. Less was more.

“And?”

“Recklessness and bravery.”

Seemed about right.

* * *

 

It was nearly 10pm and Todd was only halfway through Knox’s essay. The boy really loved commas and everytime Todd tried to cross one out he fought tooth and nail over it.

“They just make everything clearer!” Knox said. He tried physically reaching for Todd’s red pen and yelped when his hand was swatted away. “Y’know you’re way less fun than Charlie when he used to correct my essays.”

Todd snorted at the idea of Charlie being any sort of tutor. “And what grades did you get on those essays?” 

Knox mumbled something under his breath and Todd hummed triumphantly. 

Their assignment for Keating’s class was a character analysis of choice from  _ Romeo and Juliet _ , mainly focusing on modern interpretations of their personalities and motivations. It was honestly an interesting topic, Todd had gone with the implications of mental illness and/or abuse in Benvolio, but Knox had sort of backed himself into a corner. He’d chosen Romeo, predictably, and was trying to prove that his courting of Juliet was progressively feminist. If he’d signed it he could have just sent the thing to Chris and gotten it over with.

The sheer lovey-doveyness of the thing was almost painful, but intriguing all the same. His grammar sucked yeah, but the content seemed like he’d put a lot of heart into it, like he really wanted to convey what he felt but was just falling short in terms of skill.

About ten minutes passed with no interruptions after Knox went and sulked on Neil’s bed, who was studying calc with Charlie and Meeks, and started scribbling something in his notebook. The sound of paper being ripped off broke the silence though, and Knox moved to sit on the desk next to Todd and held out the page. 

“Can you read this?” he asked. He was clawing at a hangnail with his thumb and fidgeting in general, nervous it seemed. “It’s for Christ and you’re the best out of all of us at writing.”

The surprise must have been evident on his face because Knox raked a hand through his hair and frowned a bit . “I know it’s weird and you’re already doing me a favor I just don’t want her to think I’m dumb because we aren’t even officially going out yet and I don’t want to mess it up and-”

Todd had snatched the paper from his hand and started in on it with the red pen before he could finish.

Knox broke into a grin and ruffled Todd’s hair affectionately. He sort of had this thing where personal space was just, not his thing, and he was basically climbing over Todd to try and see what he was writing. The only consolation was that he wasn’t arguing, just breathing down his neck and intensely silent. 

Again, normally Todd would have physically moved or snarked something at Knox until he moved a normal distance away, but he was embarrassed to say he was a little bit distracted by how taken he was with the poem. He knew Knox was a romantic, but with the exception of his poem last semester and the Romeo paper, he never  _ experienced _ the romance in action, and it was kind of cute. 

Not in a cute, my-heart-stops-when-I-see-you kind of way, like it was in the third grade after Marcus Demarius held his hand at recess every day for a week, or like when he was just falling asleep and Neil would come into the room and make such an effort to be quiet Todd became more awake and focused than ever. 

No, it was cute in the indirect sense. 

After the third stanza he worked up the courage and found the words to actually ask Knox a question that had been clawing at his throat ever since the first day of chem a few weeks ago.

“How did you know that Chris liked you back?”

Looking up, Knox looked a little taken back. Mentally and physically, he’d actually stepped back a bit. 

“I didn’t,” Knox said, moving to sit down on Todd’s bed this time, “I just sorta went for it y’know? Well you do know, you were there. Well, not  _ there  _ there, but you know what I mean.”

“But why did you go for it? Even though you knew she might shoot you down?”

“Because I loved her, and I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t at least try.”

Todd felt his heart pick up a bit and he nodded, gripping the pen tighter and going back to the poem. 

“Okay, so in this line I think you should use a synonym because it sounds a little repetitive…”

* * *

 

“Happy Valentine’s Day Todd!” 

Todd groaned and buried his face deeper in his pillow, something landed on his back, but it was too early for him to remotely care. Love was great but sometimes sleep was better. 

Neil disagreed.

A pair of hands shook his shoulders roughly. “C’mon, get up! The day is young, embrace it!”

“Too early.”

He could feel Neil’s breath on his face and that was nearly enough to get him up, but he figured if he slept he might  _ dream  _ something better so he opted for groaning as Neil started pulling his blanket off him.

“Neil it’s  _ Saturday _ .”

He probably said something but Todd had actually started to drift back to sleep and didn’t catch it. Even without the blanket his head was heavy and his mind was checking out of consciousness. The silence comforted him and groggily he figured Neil left to get breakfast. 

All he managed was a high pitched yelp when the assumed gone terrible roommate grabbed his leg and  _ dragged _ him off the bed. The blanket softened his landing but still.

If looks could kill. “Neil.”

The goofy smile Neil sent him stifled any actual animosity he might have had and he felt himself smile just the slightest bit. Perceptive one that he was, Neil noticed.

“See! You’re happy to have the entire day ahead of you, on this day of all days, Valentines day,” he said. The light filtering through their blinds was hitting his hair at just the right angle and it gave him enough of a halo to fully wake Todd up.

But he wasn’t trying to get himself too worked up this early in the morning, so he just rolled his eyes before accepting Neil’s outstretched hand and pulling himself into a standing position. Yawning, he felt Neil messing with his hair and batted at his hand reflexively. 

“You look like you slept in the woods,” Neil said hand dodging Todd’s and attempting to flatten the pieces that were sticking up. “Really.”

In a different timeline he would have leaned into the touch but they were at a Catholic school and despite Knox and Charlie’s vague advice, he was lacking in courage. “I wanted to sleep deliberately.”

Neil’s laugh was like church bells and they knocked around in Todd’s head so loud it made his ears ring. 

“Today is for poets and lovers, you’re getting in the spirit already,” Neil said. He gave up on Todd’s hair after a few seconds and they got halfway to the dining hall before the ‘lovers’ part sunk in.

* * *

 

“ _ Tropic of Cancer  _ by Henry Miller, the true origins of erotica my friends.” Charlie held the book up from his place cross legged on Meeks and Pitts desk. “Snatched a copy over break and I’ve been waiting for the perfect day to break it out, and on this day of all days, Valentine’s Day, it seems most appropriate.”

Neil shot Todd a pointed look and he rolled his eyes, connecting them with an equally exasperated Pitts, and started snickering. A book smacked the back of his head and Charlie glared down at him from his perch. 

“Pay attention Anderson, this is a historical text.”

“It’s also a banned text,” Cameron piped up from the bed, seemingly unaffected by Charlie’s death stare. 

“Go get Nolan then,” he shot back.

Cameron stayed silent and Charlie cleared his throat before continuing. “I would call an official Dead Poets meeting-”

“Not your job to call meetings,” Meeks said.

“-but unfortunately it is February and unless any of you are hiding a dogsled team underneath your beds, this will have to do.”

Everyone murmured in agreement and Charlie smiled. “Perfect, I’ll go first and pass the book  _ counter _ clockwise--yes Meeks we’re doing  _ counter _ clockwise tonight-- and we’ll all read a few lines that we believe encapsulate who we are on this Valentine’s day in 1960.”

Pitts pulled out a smoke and raised his eyebrows at Charlie before lighting. “A bit theatrical, eh Dalton?”

Charlie flipped him off without looking and started to flip through the book. The smoke was passed around and Todd took a long drag before handing it over to Neil. The smoke lingered in his lungs for a few seconds before he exhaled, nicotine buzzing in his head. 

“Got it!” Charlie accepted the smoke from Neil and inhaled quickly, smoke filtering out his mouth as he started to read. “‘ I've lived out my melancholy youth. I don't give a fuck anymore what's behind me, or what's ahead of me. I'm healthy. Incurably healthy. No sorrows, no regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today!’” 

Neil whistled and the rest of them clapped, Meeks for a beat longer than the rest and Charlie beamed just a bit longer than necessary before passing the book to his right. They still had the general agreement that Todd didn’t have to read unless he wanted too, which he really didn’t tonight, so he relaxed a bit and enjoyed the feeling of Neil’s shoulder against his.

And, not reading gave him time to consider each of the guys choices. Over the last few months he’d gotten a general idea of what kind of poems each of them would read. 

Charlie always in the direction of youth. Living young and in the moment for as long as you could.

“‘Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.’”

Knox’s centered around the joy as much as romance. The constant desire to live so that you could chase the butterflies in your chest. 

“‘Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war.’”

Cameron was the tireless realist, usually playing into the humor of the group but with a sense of intellectual of superiority that was jagged an off putting.

“‘On the meridian of time, there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama.’”

Pitts always spoke with a sense of groundedness and sincerity that so juxtaposed his quieter, more amiable disposition it always caught Todd off guard. He always felt like he knew the guy a little bit better after each meeting.

“‘I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul.’”

For some reason Meeks had chosen poetry that year that oozed a sense of restlessness and turbulence, sometimes reflected in a more existential sense, but usually more local, intimate even. Whenever he read Todd felt like it wasn’t addressed to him, like he was intruding on some sacred ritual between Meeks and an unnamed force. 

The book passed Todd without missing a beat and fell into Neil’s hands like a slab of stone.

“‘An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.”

And Neil. Neil always had that low frequency of melancholy in his voice that Todd felt pulse in his chest like a second heartbeat. It was a communal kind of sadness, they all understood, but from an outside perspective. He always read about freedom and independence and the irony in his voice nearly pushed Todd to tears each time. 

When the rest of the meeting fell into its usual jovial state, Todd smiled and occasionally cut in with a comment, even though he was decently comfortable around everyone, his quiet disposition stuck with him.

But as the night progressed he found himself thinking more and about what he would have chosen to read if he had the energy that night. When he was younger he stole the book from Jeff’s room and one line still stuck with him.

“‘Words are loneliness.’”


	2. The Lover

“A musical?”

“Yes, a musical.” Neil was absolutely beaming, very literally bouncing up and down on his knees at the foot of Todd’s bed and the excitement was tangible. “ _ Sweeney Todd _ to be exact.”

Todd was trying to wrap his mind around the idea of Neil  _ singing _ up there on a stage, and he hadn’t realized he’d broken into a smile until Neil barked out a laugh of his own and jumped up off the bed.

“It’s fantastic isn’t it?” He’d begun to pace and it was so reminiscent of last fall it sent a pang through Todd’s chest. “I mean, I don’t even know if I can  _ sing _ , but I can feel it y’know? Like I need to just try and  _ do  _ it.”

Truthfully, Todd didn’t know, not really, but he nodded anyway and felt himself getting jittery with the idea of Neil singing and acting again. He’d been amazing as Puck, Todd had never seen him happier, and that pure energy was radiating in the whole room. It made him almost giddy.

But almost was never quite enough. 

“How am I going to get away with it this time?”

Neil had stopped in the middle of the room suddenly and within a second wasn’t even looking at Todd anymore, he was just staring out the window. Like flipping a lightswitch. He hated that it had to be like that for him.

“How did you last time?”

“Luck, honestly. Any number of thing could have clued him in but they just sort of didn’t,” he said slowly. 

It broke Todd’s heart to see him standing there like that. In seconds his posture had changed and four months of living with the guy alerted Todd to the fact that Neil was very likely to fall into a panic if he didn’t offer him  _ something _ .

Todd crawled to the edge of the bed and swung his legs over the side, the sound of his shoes echoed for half a second after they hit the ground. “We can make our own luck-”

Neil barked out a laugh.

“-No, c’mon, we can. I mean, you know none of the other kids have connection to your Dad, he would have found out through their parents if they did. All we have to do is make sure like, none of the guys or Keating, anyone who went to the show before break, let’s anything slip. Nobody else even knows.”

The words left his mouth quickly and for once didn’t stumble over one another. He had no idea if they held any weight, though. Neil just raked a hand through his hair and kept looking out the window. 

It was an old tick Todd thought he’d managed to get rid off, but he felt his hands shake just the slightest bit. 

But then, all the sudden, Neil was laughing. Not the bitter laugh from a minute or so ago, no it was real laughter, loud and filling the entire room and Todd couldn’t help but get swept up by it.

It and Neil that was. He stumbled to sit next to Todd and slung an arm over his shoulders, trying and failing for a while to gain his composure. His eyes were screwed shut and Todd allowed himself a moment to stare and everything about the moment forced the smile on his face. 

His hands still shook, oddly enough.

“Todd,” Neil finally gasped out, “Thank you. For that very intelligent plan and also for speaking louder and for longer than I think you ever have, at least to me.”

He turned to smile at Todd and their faces were inches apart. Todd was smiling too, clenching his hands to hide the shake, and Neil’s eyes were brown and he smelled like peppermint and looked like he’d been carved from stone and he was  _ right there _ .

* * *

 

They were working on a worksheet about balancing equations in different types of chemical reactions. ‘They’ wasn’t really right though, ‘they’ implied a collective, as in plural,  _ two  _ or more. Which was really not the situation they had going on right now.

It wasn’t even a hard assignment and Todd had almost finished the entire thing, and usually he didn’t care and did the thing by himself anyway, but Charlie had been scribbling on a sheet of paper with a weird frantic energy for the last twenty minutes and it was driving Todd insane. 

Once Charlie’s paper tore from erasing it too hard Todd finally had had enough.

“Oh my god what are you writing?”

Charlie had the nerve to look confused, like he forgot Todd was sitting a foot away and strangely enough, hunched over his page a bit protectively. “Homework.”

Todd snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“It is!” Charlie shot back, “I don’t actually want to flunk out, you know.”

But he was still very clearly trying to keep Todd from reading what was on the page, in a very un-Charlie fashion he might add, and it just peaked his curiosity further. 

“What class?”

“Keating’s.”

Charlie glared at Todd when he broke into a grin. They’d been going over the art of romanticism in poetry and prose and had to write something romantic. And it was supposed to be real romance, they didn’t have to read it aloud or anything. Todd had started his already.

Boldly, but he was thinking a bit about his own poem and his room so elation played a factor in his decision making, he made a grab for Charlie’s paper. “Who’s it about?”

“Cameron.” Charlie slapped Todd’s hand away and stuffed the paper back in his bag. No seeing the thing now but there was a rare blush crawling up Charlie’s neck regardless. “Obviously.”

Todd opened his mouth to say, well he didn’t know exactly what, but he was aiming to keep Charlie as flustered as possible with whatever it was, when a really familiar and dangerous look appeared in Charlie’s eyes. 

“Who’s yours about then? Since we’re all about sharing.”

“Well technically you lied so nobody had really shared anything-”

“I can take a wild guess,” Charlie said lowly. It was exaggerated enough to let Todd know he was just being playful, but he felt his face heat up regardless. Apparently it was visible. “We both have a common theme then, locationally I mean, for who we chose-”

“Shut up Charlie.”

Suddenly feeling paranoid and very aware of his surroundings, Todd glanced at the nearest table before turning his eyes back to the worksheet. A foot kicked his shin before he got the chance to read it properly.

Charlie was smiling, eyes bright. “I’m sorry.”

It was very contradictory but he did sound sincere and Todd found it really difficult to stay mad at him for long. A part of his charm, or so he was told. 

“It’s okay,” he said, “I hope you and Cameron are very happy together.”

“Fuck off.”

* * *

 

A beam of sunlight fell right into Neil’s lap when he and Todd sat down. Weak, winter sunlight, but it hung in the air and reflected off the dust so Todd could trace it back to the window and into the sky. 

Lines, lines, lines. Musicals still had a lot of memorizing of lines, and the only difference between now and the fall play auditions was the slight chill in the air and the amount of layers they were both wearing, subsequently, even though they were inside. 

“ _ I feel you, Johanna, I feel you… _ ”

Oh and the singing of the lines, that part was awfully different as well. Good different.  _ Amazing _ different actually.

In complete Neil-fashion, he’d been singing bits and pieces of his songs, he was auditioning for Anthony apparently, and he had absolutely no insecurity in doing so. Todd found it unimaginable, but Neil, no Neil was actually good. Like,  _ actually  _ good.

It had been an emotional rollercoaster ride for the last half hour if he was being honest.

“I think I need to know more about the character,” Neil said finally. His voice cracked a bit from all the singing and Todd almost laughed. “Because obviously he’s passionate, it’s just difficult to understand  _ why _ , y’know?”

Todd frowned then, because while Neil had been singing and rehearsing, Todd had actually checked out the script of the play from the library and read it a few nights ago. Purely for enjoyment and to better be able to help his friend, really no other reason for it. 

But that question confused him because the plot was pretty straightforward.

“What do you mean? It’s because he’s in love with her, yeah? That’s his whole motivation.”

It made sense in his mind but Neil looked lost, despite having written some pretty cheesy poems for Keating’s class and Dead Poets meetings, he seemed thrown off. 

“But didn’t he just meet her?”

“Yeah but I mean, it was the same with Romeo and Juliet and a lot of older stuff, especially when the characters are young.” Todd was thinking towards the end of the musical, pretty brutal by the way, and trying to offer up something. “I mean it could be a cautionary tale right? Like Sweeney lost his wife and Anthony could represent, like what could have happened if Sweeney would have held on.”

Neil’s frown lessened a bit. “Yeah, that makes sense. And that idea works for Romeo and Juliet too, it just throws me off because it doesn’t really feel real, y’know?”

He looked up and Todd nodded even though he really didn’t know, and as much as he usually like dissecting symbolism and stuff like that, he didn’t care all that much about romance in plays and novels. It all seemed overdone and he only read it when he had to. 

They went back to lines after that, Neil singing and Todd reading other parts with enough of a lilt to his voice to keep the tempo. Neil was focused enough on getting the notes right he didn’t notice Todd stealing glances now and then. 

The sunlight had shifted to fall across his face just below his eyes and if he’d been a painter he would have been on that in a second it was so  _ pretty _ . 

Once though, when they were nearly done for the day, Neil did look up and catch Todd’s eyes flicking away. He didn’t make it a whole thing, he actually smiled sort of to himself and kept singing with a weird little grin on his face. 

_ “Even now, I'm at your window, I am in the dark beside you…” _

Todd had a thought or two about that line in particular, but ended up letting it go. He was reading to into things.

* * *

 

Keating’s class was quiet for the first time since September, and for once Todd was able to bury his head in a book and not get it ripped away from his hands and forced into conversation. It sounded a lot more violent and rude than it actually was, the guys were really trying to help. Once Charlie had ripped the cover off a paperback but that was the only incident of property damage.

But today there wasn’t any room for talking. Keating was out sick and Nolan had stepped in to watch over them, mostly making the class a study hall period because Keating’s notes didn’t make any sense to him. 

It was also worth noting that Todd did have a lot of assignments he  _ should  _ be doing, but he’d been up late revising for Trig and doing any more of it sounded like death. 

So he’d found a book of Robert Frost’s poetry and settled in. 

_ A Question (1942): _

_ A voice said, Look me in the stars _

_ And tell me truly, men of earth, _

_ If all the soul-and-body scars _

_ Were not too much to pay for birth _

Todd actually bookmarked this particular poem to re read whenever he got the chance. It made sense to him right off the bat, which was suspicious because usually poems had layers of deeper meaning, but he liked the face value of this one. 

It weighed the pros and cons of life really. Was all the pain and suffering worth getting to experience the good parts of being alive. It seemed like it could vary by the person if you thought about it. Someone who’s fought in a war has experienced worse than someone lets say at Welton, who gets pretty much all the breaks.

But Todd always felt like despite the levels of suffering, life always outweighed not existing at all. The poem was pretty ambiguous on its stance, it felt maybe like Frost was asking himself that question and hadn’t quite figured out the answer.

It was four lines of smoke and mirrors and Todd adored it. 

“I can’t see the last line.”

Todd gasped quietly and jumped forward in his seat. Good thing Nolan had walked out for something, he would’ve been written up. “Jesus  _ Christ _ .”

He turned his head and almost smacked Neil in the face because he was too busy laughing to move back. There was a blush fighting its way up Todd’s neck and he glared to try and draw attention away from it. 

“I-I’m sorry.” Neil managed to calm down a bit, Cameron glaring at him from over a physics textbook helped with that, and he clapped a hand on Todd’s shoulder. “It took you so long to notice I was reading over your shoulder, I forgot you get so focused.”

“Yeah well I haven’t had much time to read what with all my lovely friends constantly scaring me and stealing my books.”

Neil ruffled his hair and did just that.

“Y’know maybe I wasn’t done with that-”

Neil hummed and held a hand up while he finished the last line. “I’ve seen you reading this a thousand times and you dog-eared the page, you’ve probably memorized it.”

Todd had memorized it. “No I haven’t.”

“I don’t believe you,” Neil sang, giving him the book back regardless. “It’s a good poem, what do you think it means?”

Todd couldn’t tell if he was actually interested or just engaging in one of the guys’ favorite games entitled: Get Todd to Speak More Consecutive Words Than the Day Prior. There were no winners, except maybe Charlie, which might be cheating since he usually threw stuff at Todd or play fought him if he felt he needed to speak more. 

Neil had a better approach.

“Um, well, it’s sort of open ended. It could be about like, life, the good and the bad and which one outweighs the other.” Todd could have, would have, gone on for a good five minutes if they’d been alone or even with a couple of the guys but he felt exposed in the classroom. It was louder but quiet enough where his voice felt like it was sticking out.

But Neil nodded like that actually made sense and leaned forward on his elbows to read the cover. “ _ The Selected works of Robert Frost _ .” He took a beat. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, right?”

“Yeah!” Todd said, happy with the fact that Neil had actually listened and retained some of the information from when he rambled on about books and poets. “And the  _ Fire and Ice  _ one too.”

“He’s good, we should read more of his stuff at the meetings.”

“Maybe we should.”

Neil gave him a pointed look. “Maybe  _ you  _ should.”

Todd rolled his eyes, mostly to cover up the burst of nervousness in the pit of his stomach. None of the guys ever questioned him not reading for the most part, once or twice he’d read some Whitman for the fun of it, and he was grateful for it. “C’mon-”

“You c’mon, it’s the last semester we’ll ever be together!” At Todd’s now visible nervousness, the hand shaking thing had been coming and going lately, he softened a bit. “I’m not saying like, the  _ next  _ meeting, okay? Just once before the year ends.”

It really wasn’t that big of an ask and Neil had that puppy dog thing going on and Todd didn’t really have any control over his body when he nodded.

“Yes! You’ve made my day Todd Anderson.” With that sentiment he sat back in his chair and Nolan walked back in the room, obviously trying to figure out who he could hear from the hallway, but Todd could have cared less. His heart was in his throat and he couldn’t have made a sound if he tried.

* * *

 

It was almost spring break and it was amazing how fast time was passing. The flurry of college applications had taken up most of January and February, and with their spring break coming up in early March, it made them feel like they were running the final stretch despite having nearly three months left.

Nobody was talking about it though. Everyone just sort of, ignored the fact that they would be splitting up soon. Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe he was the only one thinking about it at all.

“Todd?” Neil snapped his fingers in Todd’s face, smirking when he jolted a bit. “Writing your next novel in there?”

Heartbeat taking a second to slow down, Todd focused back in on Neil. The zoning out had become almost a problem with him lately, he guessed Neil already knew. He paid attention to those type of things. 

“ _ Next  _ novel?”

But no need to bring down the mood, yeah?

“The sequel to the one you’ve got down in all those damn notebooks,” Neil quipped. 

Months of being roommates had made Todd wary, and he clutched his notebook to his chest when Neil moved a little closer with that  _ look _ . He could count the number of times Neil had managed to snag a notebook on one hand and planned on keeping it that way. 

“Yeah yeah, just get back to memorizing.” 

It was a rather bland attention shift but to be fair Neil  _ was  _ supposed to be memorizing. Apparently the leads had to be  _ “ _ off book” by the end of break, which gave Todd about four more days  _ helping  _ him revise before they both went home for the week and Neil practiced in secret.

But an unfortunate consequence of telling Neil to revise was that he actually did it. Quietly, more under his breath than anything and Todd found himself straining to hear.

It was stupid, he thought, to care as much as he did. Because he did care, he could admit that much, about Neil. The stupid part was that in three months they’d be out of each other’s lives, probably forever, so why set yourself up for a heartbreak that you can literally see on the horizon?

Because you were seventeen and an idiot, apparently.

“Can I practice something for a second? There’s this part in Johanna Reprise that’s throwing me off because I need another person for it.”

Neil looked expectantly at a rather wide-eyed Todd, taking his weak nod as a strong answer and shifting forward so their knees were touching. He cleared his throat and Todd took a couple seconds to clear his head. Their shared contact was normal at this point, but normal like a lightning storm is normal in the middle of spring. Everyone knew it was coming but when it finally hit it was like they’d mistaken that knowledge for a dream, and were waking up just in time to see lights flashing across the sky. 

“Okay, so I’m pretending you’re Johanna just because there’s a bunch of physical cues that I need to practice,” Neil said with a saddening level of composure. 

Todd had become interested in the warped wood floor beneath them, another meek nod giving way to a strong action.

“ _ Do they think walls can hide you?” _

The melody drifted between them and Todd felt a twinge of pride, Neil had  _ earned  _ that part, deserved it more like. Pride gave way to other things and when Todd looked up Neil was looking at him earnestly because he was  _ Johanna _ and this wasn’t  _ real life _ .

“ _ Even now I’m at your window…” _

Todd was leaving in three months, Neil was leaving in three months, there was no use messing with this now. Even with the jibes from Charlie and strangely enough Meeks, a time and a place had once existed but now it was gone. 

_ “Buried sweetly in your yellow hair…” _

Neil tugged playfully on a strand of Todd’s hair and logic felt like it was slipping away and giving way to the especially smug voice of Charlie Dalton yelling at him to seize the day. Seize it, take it and make it yours because the moment is going to be six feet under in three months.

_ “Johanna…” _

Lightning sparked up behind his eyes and he was pulling Neil’s face closer and thunder resonated deep in his chest and he was  _ kissing  _ Neil.

Rain poured and his eyes were closed and for a split second the light shone on his own face and  _ shit _ . 

The rain stopped and it was all very anticlimactic. 

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, I’m  _ so  _ so sorry I don’t know why I did that, I-shit I don’t-”

“Todd.”

The air was crackling with something that Todd couldn’t name and he could not look Neil in the eyes right now. “Jesus Christ you hate me I’m so sorry.”

He was staggering up and trying to breathe though the knot in his chest when Neil grabbed his wrist and jerked him back down. God he was going to get punched or something wasn’t he? And everyone would know why and he’d honestly probably get kicked out or something-

“ _ Todd _ ,” Neil said, grabbing Todd’s chin and faltering when he flinched. He closed the distance that time and in a moment of complete and utter shock Todd had absolutely no idea if he was even kissing back.

* * *

 

Spring break was utterly uneventful. A piano could have fallen on Todd’s head and he still would have called it uneventful in comparison. 

No calls but he knew that beforehand.

Lots of poetry which he also anticipated beforehand. He’d ravaged his last journal within a day and got halfway through a second before the first weekday of break rolled around. Writing didn’t cramp his hand for the whole week no matter how fast he wrote. 

Less sleep than he’d ever gotten in a week, four hours a night for the first five days before his body finally caved and knocked him out for eighteen consecutive hours. His mother almost called the doctor to the house she was so worried, the word comatose was tossed around, not really a big deal if you asked him. Strong emotion always took place in the extremes. Fire and ice. Devastation and elation. Insomnia followed by hypersomnia in his case. 

More words caught up in his throat than usual, and for the first time fear wasn’t causing it. It was like when you were on a rollercoaster and someone asks you a question while the ride is happening and all your mind can instruct your lungs to do is scream. Screaming wasn’t exactly possible or remotely familiar in the Anderson household and therefore he fell silent. It was comforting, oddly.

And above all, time had never passed more slowly. 

But that he anticipated beforehand.

* * *

 

“He hates me Charlie.”

“No he doesn’t, it’s only been a day since we got back. He’s always in a bad mood after going home.”

“That’s not it, you know it isn’t.”

“Give it time.”

“What time? What time am I supposed to give? We barely have any left as it is.”

“Exactly, so don’t waste any sitting around wondering. Go up and ask him what’s wrong, be direct.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I am, Todd.”

* * *

 

Todd walked into his room with a weird mixture of confidence and anger that could only be achieved after an hour spent with Charlie Dalton. It would fade fast and he needed to get everything out on the table.

Neil was there when he entered and barely glanced over his shoulder when Todd shut the door sharply behind him. “Hey.”

“What’s your problem?” Todd asked. Neil’s eyebrows shot into his hairline and it did sound slightly more aggressive than assertive. “I mean-what’s wrong? Why have you been distant since we got back?”

“I dunno Todd,” Neil said lowly. His eyes barely met Todd’s and despite his nonchalant attitude he wasn’t turning back to the book on his desk. “I didn’t realize I was acting distant.”

Hurt bubbled in Todd’s chest. “Yes you did, you do. I-I just thought that you’d be able to tell me if you didn’t want to take anything further and I’d just rather you like, I don’t know,   _ hit  _ me or something because that would be better. Honestly. That would be better than this.”

Confidence had turned into desperation and anger was fading fast, leaving nothing as a replacement. It was like a void.

Neil’s eyes were pained and they contradicted the rest of his body language. “Todd I-”

“Please, just tell me. I don’t care what it is just tell me.”

The sickening feeling of his nails cutting into the skin on his palms sliced into him but he didn’t stop. Every muscle and fiber was tense. 

Neil looked like a mess, just physically. Dark bags sat beneath his eyes and he was gripping his hair so hard his knuckles shone white. When he finally spoke his voice was cracked.

“I just-I went home and it was  _ awful _ , which isn’t even an excuse because it’s always awful but it just hit me that everything’s ending and it’s not going to end the way I want it to. He has  _ everything  _ that’s mine and honestly? It’s shitty but if he found out, however he found out, even if it was like twenty years from now, he’d take it. And I couldn’t stand if he did and I just-I don’t know why I thought I could stop that by acting like a dick.”

Todd could hear his breathing catch as he tried to keep from crying and he moved until he was sitting on the ground in front of Neil, grabbing his hand. 

“Fuck I’m sorry.”

All that poetry over break and there wasn’t one thing he could think to say that would have put it better than that. 

Neil practically fell into his arms though. Words couldn’t describe how much that hurt him.

* * *

 

Todd’s back was killing him when he woke up the next morning, Sunday morning. Welton couldn’t just have everyone come back from break on a Monday, no they made them sit in their rooms for two days in a last ditch attempt to break their spirit. 

He was definitely being dramatic but somehow he had a crick in his neck too. When he tried to sit up, from the  _ floor  _ where he’d  _ slept _ , someone groaned into the fabric of his sweater and arms coiled tightly around his waist.

_ Oh _ .

Turning his neck as much he could, Todd saw a mess of dark hair and his mind connected all the dots before he could blink properly. He’d struggled to remember falling asleep last night, like this. And as much warmth as he was getting from Neil himself and the vague memory of becoming entangled together like this, his lower back still felt like it was snapping in half.

So he turned as gently as he could until he and was nose to nose with Neil and his spine realigned itself. 

The soft whimper of pain following that process was what did the trick. Brown eyes fluttered open sleepily, almost screwing shut from the light until they met Todd’s and got very, very large. 

“G’morning.”

“Why’re we on the floor?” Neil asked, voice thick with sleep. He turned so that he was on his back and Todd almost whimpered again from the loss of contact, fighting back the urge to pull Neil back down when he stood up. “Did we fall asleep?”

The bed was really right there but Todd just curled into a ball and nodded. “Apparently.”

A rather muffled laugh reached Todd’s ears and he ignored the toe nudging him in the ribs. It was Sunday and uncomfortable as he was, laziness prevailed. 

“At least go on the bed, you’re going to mess up your neck.”

Groaning, Todd unfurled and sat up, squinting up at Neil and rubbing at his admittedly sore neck. “Too late.” 

He accepted Neil’s outstretched hand and pulled himself to a shaky stand, almost immediately stumbling the two steps toward his bed and lying down, blanket over his head and mind starting to shut off. 

The door creaked open and Todd forced himself to sit up. “Wait!”

Neil paused in the doorway and cocked an eyebrow.

“Are we okay?”

A smile overtook his features and Neil nodded. “Yeah, we are.”

“Good.”

With that, Todd was able to shut off completely, and he was out by the time the door clicked shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only took us 10,000 words but anderperry finally made a genuine appearance
> 
> I'm gonna try and get the last chapter done before I start school and kudos/comments are hella motivational so hmu if you can!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you're enjoying so far! 
> 
> Please leave your thoughts and/or feedback in the comments and leaves kudos if you can!!


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